Monday, November 24, 2008

Week of Nov. 24 - 26

Thanksgiving is just around the corner and we are beginning a two and a half day school-week! As we have a meaningful short week of instruction, I want to wish all families a happy Thanksgiving and I hope you all stay safe on the roads, those of you who may be traveling out of town.

This week in Science...
we are wrapping up our matter unit! Students should be finishing up their study guides for the unit exams. This study guide is due Wednesday, Nov. 26. We will go over this guide together, as a class, on Wednesday. Students should be using this study guide to review for the test that will be on Tuesday, December 2. Other ways students can study are to visit "Arctic-Science" on ANGEL. Under "Units" and "Matter", there are some great power points that students can view to help review the content. There's even a Matter MEHpardy game that you can play at home to play with a friend, parent, or by yourself!


This week in Social Studies... students will begin reviewing important concepts from our European Explorers unit. Tuesday, students will be completing a graphic organizer in class that will help them narrow down their studying. Another great way to review for the test is to do the online tutorials from History Alive - Here's the link: History Alive Tutorial
Students should also visit angel and view the (wmv) video called "Explorers Unit Reivew" as a way of reviewing the material. This video can also be found at: www.vimeo.com/SS5. Remember... History Alive doesn't have everything. It will be necessary to use additional notes in the Social Studies spirals. If you are unsure whether your notes are complete, check out the Explorers unit under Social Studies on ANGEL - the notes are there as well. The unit test is on Friday, Dec. 5.


This week in Math... we are working on comparing and ordering decimals as well as rounding decimals . Next week we'll look in to adding and subtracting decimals as we wrap up our Number Sense/Addition & Subtraction unit.
Assignments:
Monday -
WKS: Practice 2-11 - Exploring Comparing and Ordering Decimals
Tuesday - WKS: Practice 2-12 - Rounding decimals
Wednesday - NO HOMEWORK

Monday, November 17, 2008

Week of November 17 - 21

This week in science... we will continue to explore the properties of ocean water through hands-on experiments. Through those experiments we'll practice making predictions, observations, and drawing conclusions. How does salinity affect the density of ocean water? How does salinity affect water's ability to freeze? How does the pressure of ocean water change the deeper we go? We'll find out!

Check out our videos we made about our elements on: www.vimeo.com/science5

Students will be receiving a study guide for our matter unit on Tuesday. This study guide should be completed by Wednesday, Nov. 26 (this gives everyone a week!) and our final unit assessment on matter will be Tuesday, Dec. 2, that's the Tuesday we get back from Thanksgiving Break!

If students do not complete the Thursday Thought in class Thursday, they should bring it home for homework Thursday night to be due Monday. The materials for the Thursday Thought are available on ANGEL.

This week in Social Studies...we will learn about some European explorers: What country were they exploring for? What what route did they take? What were their motivations? and What were their accomplishments for the Age of Exploration. We'll find all of that out!

This week in math.. we will continue to explore large numbers by ordering and comparing them using the symbols <,>, and =. We'll be rounding large numbers for the purpose of estimating and we'll finally, and the end of the week, begin using decimals and becoming more familiar with them.
ASSIGNMENTS:
Monday -
WKS: Practice 2-5
Tuesday -
WKS: Practice 2-6
Wednesday -WKS: Practice 3-1 side ONLY
Thursday - Other side - Practice 3-2
Friday -No Homework

Friday, November 14, 2008

Our Element Videos!

These video documentaries about our elements have been a long time in the making, but we're done!!!

Check them out on: www.vimeo.com/science5 - LINK: Click Here!

These are as good as any professional ones you'll find online! If you don't see your video here, keep checking back. :)

Way to go fifth grade science students!

Monday, November 10, 2008

Week of November 10 - 14

This week in Science... we are finishing our storyboards in order to create our video documentaries about our elements. Students should type their script into the template found on angel and send it to me or print it out and bring it in to class by Wednesday, Nov. 12. In class we will also be looking at different properties of ocean water through some experiments -- properties include salinity, temperature, and pressure.

This week in Social Studies... we are continuing to discover what motivated European explorers to head across the open seas to new lands. Why did they go? What were they looking for? We will also explore some obstacles they faced as well as accomplishments.

This week in Math... we will explore our place value system and how it's a base-10 system -- each place value is ten times greater than the one before it... so how much is one million really? Could be tap on our desks one million times in one day? One thousand times? Could there be number systems that are not based on tens... for example the binary number system? What do all those ones and zeros mean? We'll find out!!
Assignments:
Monday - WKS: practice 2-2
Tuesday -Numbers in three forms (on a piece of loose leaf paper students will write each number in three forms).
Wednesday -WKS: practice 2-3
Thursday -WKS: Exponents
Friday -NO HOMEWORK

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Week of Nov. 3-7

We had a great time over the past two days meeting with parents and setting some great goals for the rest of the school year. Thanks for taking time out of your days to meet with us! Look for copies of the conference notes in Friday Folders this week.

This Wednesday, Nov. 5
is a short Wednesday. Students will be dismissed at noon. On Wednesday students will participate in a cultural exchange simulation all morning. This will set the stage for our Social Studies unit on the Age of Exploration! What happens when European cultures met the Native cultures in North America?
Some other
Essential Questions we will discuss and answer in this unit are: Why did European countries compete for power in North America? What were the obstacles faced by the explorers? What were the accomplishments of the explorations? What regions of North America were settled by France, England, and Spain? What regions were explored by Portugal? How did the American Indians and Europeans interact with each other? What impact did Europeans have on Native American cultures? What was the importance of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai? How did West African empires impact European trade?

In Science.... We will continue exploring matter by defining properties of ocean water and see (through experiments) how properties like salinity, temperature, and pressure affect ocean water. We will also begin our element video documentaries by creating our scripts and story boards! Students will need to visit ANGEL and download the electronic version of the story board on a computer in order to type in their script in each of the 6 boxes. We will work more on the rough draft on Monday in class. Students should print out the story board with text or email it to Mrs. McCann by Wednesday, Nov. 12.

In Math...
we will begin our new unit on NUMBER SENSE -- this includes place value, decimals, adding and subtracting.
Wednesday - No math due to Cultural Exchange Simulation
Thursday -No Homework
Friday - No Homework